Travel - 3

We started the day with a shopping walk along the beach promenade to the south, approaching Los Cristianos. It was rather windy, and we could watch some surfers. I had to pay “douchebag tax” several times during our holidays, as I didn’t manage to get a data tank for my digital photographs in time, and so I had to draw on the duties of various photo services to get some CDs or DVDs burnt with my pictures. Due to the wind, the beach wasn’t too inviting, and so we stood at our balcony. I had started to read through a printout of my Master’s thesis and wrote down some notes for correction. I felt comfortable with the content and didn’t have the impression that something important was missing. In the evening we had a gran paella at the restaurant La Gran Paella.

The next day we went earlier to the beach than usual. We had strong wind, nice waves, and watched several flying sunshades. At 15.15 we were ready to go with the Freebird One for our whale watching eco-tour, but unfortunately it was cancelled due to the weather, and so we had coffee and ice cream instead. Later we had dinner at an Italian.

On Friday morning we met our tour guide Gitti to defer the ship tour to Sunday. We also booked a visit to La Gomera for Monday and rent a car for Tuesday ‘til Thursday. After breakfast we had a parking space reserved in our hotel, as it would be rather difficult to find one in the “wilderness” of the city. We took a longer walk again, this time to the north, reaching the classy Playa del Duque. Later we went to the supermercado to buy bread, ham and wine for a home-made dinner. We went to bed earlier, as the Loro Parque was calling.

Our clock alarm went off at 6.30, and the bus picked us up shortly after 8.00. We had a classical bus tour with several stops for taking pictures, but although that wasn’t my favorite kind of getting to know a new place, we were recommended to avoid a first tour by car. So we could meet the island without having to think about where to go.

It was interesting to watch how the climate changed within only a few kilometers of drive: Dense pine woods range where the clouds dominate, with long needles to condense the water. In a higher altitude however, where clouds rarely roam, vegetation becomes sparse, and the very special geological structure beneath becomes prominent: I was absolutely fascinated by the cliffy and bizarre lava formations! This mixture of ancient and young lava rocks, colorfully varying between black and red, in very alien structuring, is so overwhelming! The sky was purely blue and the sun still low, tracing the contours of this very unique landscape. We had chance to discover the famous formations Roques de García. A wandering dog passed us by along the straight road, providing a picture like a coyote in a stone desert. We investigated the light weight of small lava rocks. However, it was strictly forbidden to take the smallest bit of stone back home. We also stopped to see the youngest crater at this site: The road went straight through the black lava streams of 1798. We left El Teide at noon, and we planned to return to this gorgeous place by car in a few days.

Back to the beach, the sun wasn’t that intense like the day before, due to a dust storm that brought sand from the Sahara Desert; the mercury showed 26°C (79°F). Later we had again dinner near the harbor of Playa de la Pinta and took a walk along the beach after sunset.